What you went through is truly amazing. Going through all the stress on your body and emotions for a whole nine months, to give up child is something that shouldn’t go unnoticed. It is also inspiring that you chose to go through the pregnancy, instead of aborting it. To be honest with you, I don’t think I could have done that. I don’t think I could have dealt with not only the abuse on my body, but as well as all the judgment from the people around me. I know we are not supposed to care about what others think of us, but I don’t know if I could handle the judgment from all my friends, peers, and even family all at once. However, I am kinda a baby. I admire your strength and ability to handle criticism, because sometimes I feel like I am hyper sensitive about certain things, and if I were to become pregnant I wouldn’t be able to have such thick skin. With that being said, I’m glad, I’m appreciative that you got the choice to keep your baby. I am happy that you got to think about your own life and decide if a child was right or not in your life. I am delighted that you were not forced to have your child because the government told you you had to, and rather did it by choice.
No women should be forced to have a baby they are not ready to have. It is not the government’s place to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body. It especially should not be up to the old white men in congress who cannot fathom the idea of what pregnancy is actually like. They will use many arguments to fight the results of Roe v. Wade, including ideas such as the Bible, unethical, or “you can give it up for adoption”. I can see a reasonable argument behind these ideas, however I feel like there are many stronger arguments to prove these ideas wrong.
For starters, the Bible. Not everyone is religious, and it is not fair to push your religion on others, especially people you do not know. Everyone had a right to freedom of religion, and just because they do not abide by your ideas of religion, does not make them wrong. You can say that you believe abortion is wrong because it goes against your beliefs, but what gives you the right to tell someone else that?
It is unethical to kill an unborn child because it has endless potential to become a great human being. While you could be right, you are most likely wrong. There are over seven billion people in the world right now, and not many of them become famous or make great history. So I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but realistically, your child probably won’t be the next Albert Einstein. “You’re killing an innocent baby”, but that “baby” isn’t even a “baby” yet. The tiny ball of cells called an embryo does not even become a fetus until around twelve weeks of pregnancy. For it to be considered a legal baby, the fetus must actually be born. So abortions are not killing babies, rather removing an embryo or fetus. I would also like to point out that ninety two percent of abortions occur in the first thirteen weeks of pregnancy, meaning that most abortions are happening while it is still an embryo. To be even more specific, sixty six percent of abortions occur in the first eight months of pregnancy. Only one point two percent of abortions occur after twenty one weeks of pregnancy. These are very late term abortion cases that only occur if the pregnancy is life threatening to the mother or if the fetus is in a horrible condition that it cannot survive after birth. These are very sad, tragic cases, but rarely happen.
“Just give your child up for adoption,” is one I hear quite frequently. It is fair enough. Have the kid, and then give them away to someone who may not be able to have kids, everyone is happy and you get to move on with your life. But do you really get to move on? Giving your child away as if it is a basic Christmas present is not as simple as it sounds. Pregnant women become attached to their babies whether they want to or not. Being pregnant comes with a ton of new hormones that make you go slightly crazy. They also make you kinda attached to your unborn child, it’s just part of the package. So for those mothers who decide they want to give up their child because they or not ready, it is very emotionally straining on them. They spend nine months become attached to fetus that is growing inside of them, only to have to give them away. You could stand there and say, “well they can keep them if they really want to so bad,” but let’s be real, not everyone has that choice. Many families cannot support a baby financially, or even provide shelter for a child. There are many single women who already struggle to support themselves, and could not survive having to care for another child. Homeless women become pregnant too, and the fifty cents you “donate” to them as you’re pulling out of the Target parking lot is not enough to pay for that child’s meals. What about the women who were rapped? You want to force them to carry their rapist’s baby to term? A man, who took advantage of a women, just so that he could have sex, and you want to make that women carry his baby? That women has to deal with a daily reminder of what happened to her, and can possible never recover because she knows that that child is alive? That is cruel, and that is punishing the victim.
What about teenagers? You can’t expect teenagers to not have sex, it’s going to happen. And since they are teenagers, they are going to be dumb sometimes, and unwanted pregnancies will occur. While some teenagers might come to terms with their pregnancy and fully accept and embrace it, this is not going to be the case for many. Lots of parents are quick to throw their daughters out of their house because their pregnancy is “disgraceful” and will make their image look bad(notice how I only said daughters, because boys don’t have this problem nearly as often because they don’t have to live with the evidence underneath their shirts. Which is also another reason why men should not be making these tough decisions for women, because they don’t understand, and never will). Some girls can’t deal with the social pressure put on them. Having to deal with all the drama at school and all the rumors said about them. Drama is already the main source of bullying, and being pregnant just gives them another thing to talk about. As a teenager, you already have an overdose of constant hormones, plus the extra ones from the pregnancy, you are bound to go a little insane. And sadly, all this drama mixed in with the hormones can cause girls to become depressed, or even suicidal. There is also the fear that they may never get to go to college and pursue their careers, that they may never meet their soulmate and settle down, there are all these fears that poor teenage girls have to face at an incredibly young age. Teenage girls should not have to answer these life changing decisions until they are ready.
But this applies to all women. Whether you’re sixteen of thirty five, if you feel you are not ready to have a baby, that is your decision. It should not be up to the government to decide what you can and cannot do with your body. By outlawing abortion, there will be more coat hanger abortions. You cannot deny it. All the girls out there who are not ready to have kids, or feel that their lives are in jeopardy will attempt to perform these dangerous abortions. The only way to keep these life threatening abortions from happening is to keep abortion legal. By having abortions available, it provides a way out for women who have no choice. Establishments such as Planned Parenthood, are essential for any female to have as a resource. Planned Parenthood is not only for abortions, but is there to provide women with other health care services they need. It offers STD testing, birth control, cancer screenings, and a few other women’s health services. In fact, only about three percent of what goes on at Planned Parenthood are actually abortions. And not only that, but none of the federal funding that the organization receives is allowed to be put towards abortion procedures.
Basically, you can not support abortion by simply staying quiet. Because you are not forced to pay taxes that support an organization that goes against your beliefs, and you are not forced to use said organization if you find yourself in a predicament that could possibly benefit from this organization. You are free to believe that abortion is wrong, and you are free to never have an abortion. But you are in no position to tell someone else that they cannot have an abortion because it is “wrong”. That is your belief, and you should not force it onto other people. We have the separation of Church and State for a reason, maybe we should have a separation of Reproduction Rights and State.
What you went through is truly amazing. Going through all the stress on your body and emotions for a whole nine months, to give up child is something that shouldn’t go unnoticed. It is also inspiring that you chose to go through the pregnancy, instead of aborting it. To be honest with you, I don’t think I could have done that. I don’t think I could have dealt with not only the abuse on my body, but as well as all the judgment from the people around me. I know we are not supposed to care about what others think of us, but I don’t know if I could handle the judgment from all my friends, peers, and even family all at once. However, I am kinda a baby. I admire your strength and ability to handle criticism, because sometimes I feel like I am hyper sensitive about certain things, and if I were to become pregnant I wouldn’t be able to have such thick skin. With that being said, I’m glad, I’m appreciative that you got the choice to keep your baby. I am happy that you got to think about your own life and decide if a child was right or not in your life. I am delighted that you were not forced to have your child because the government told you you had to, and rather did it by choice.
No women should be forced to have a baby they are not ready to have. It is not the government’s place to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body. It especially should not be up to the old white men in congress who cannot fathom the idea of what pregnancy is actually like. They will use many arguments to fight the results of Roe v. Wade, including ideas such as the Bible, unethical, or “you can give it up for adoption”. I can see a reasonable argument behind these ideas, however I feel like there are many stronger arguments to prove these ideas wrong.
For starters, the Bible. Not everyone is religious, and it is not fair to push your religion on others, especially people you do not know. Everyone had a right to freedom of religion, and just because they do not abide by your ideas of religion, does not make them wrong. You can say that you believe abortion is wrong because it goes against your beliefs, but what gives you the right to tell someone else that?
It is unethical to kill an unborn child because it has endless potential to become a great human being. While you could be right, you are most likely wrong. There are over seven billion people in the world right now, and not many of them become famous or make great history. So I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but realistically, your child probably won’t be the next Albert Einstein. “You’re killing an innocent baby”, but that “baby” isn’t even a “baby” yet. The tiny ball of cells called an embryo does not even become a fetus until around twelve weeks of pregnancy. For it to be considered a legal baby, the fetus must actually be born. So abortions are not killing babies, rather removing an embryo or fetus. I would also like to point out that ninety two percent of abortions occur in the first thirteen weeks of pregnancy, meaning that most abortions are happening while it is still an embryo. To be even more specific, sixty six percent of abortions occur in the first eight months of pregnancy. Only one point two percent of abortions occur after twenty one weeks of pregnancy. These are very late term abortion cases that only occur if the pregnancy is life threatening to the mother or if the fetus is in a horrible condition that it cannot survive after birth. These are very sad, tragic cases, but rarely happen.
“Just give your child up for adoption,” is one I hear quite frequently. It is fair enough. Have the kid, and then give them away to someone who may not be able to have kids, everyone is happy and you get to move on with your life. But do you really get to move on? Giving your child away as if it is a basic Christmas present is not as simple as it sounds. Pregnant women become attached to their babies whether they want to or not. Being pregnant comes with a ton of new hormones that make you go slightly crazy. They also make you kinda attached to your unborn child, it’s just part of the package. So for those mothers who decide they want to give up their child because they or not ready, it is very emotionally straining on them. They spend nine months become attached to fetus that is growing inside of them, only to have to give them away. You could stand there and say, “well they can keep them if they really want to so bad,” but let’s be real, not everyone has that choice. Many families cannot support a baby financially, or even provide shelter for a child. There are many single women who already struggle to support themselves, and could not survive having to care for another child. Homeless women become pregnant too, and the fifty cents you “donate” to them as you’re pulling out of the Target parking lot is not enough to pay for that child’s meals. What about the women who were rapped? You want to force them to carry their rapist’s baby to term? A man, who took advantage of a women, just so that he could have sex, and you want to make that women carry his baby? That women has to deal with a daily reminder of what happened to her, and can possible never recover because she knows that that child is alive? That is cruel, and that is punishing the victim.
What about teenagers? You can’t expect teenagers to not have sex, it’s going to happen. And since they are teenagers, they are going to be dumb sometimes, and unwanted pregnancies will occur. While some teenagers might come to terms with their pregnancy and fully accept and embrace it, this is not going to be the case for many. Lots of parents are quick to throw their daughters out of their house because their pregnancy is “disgraceful” and will make their image look bad(notice how I only said daughters, because boys don’t have this problem nearly as often because they don’t have to live with the evidence underneath their shirts. Which is also another reason why men should not be making these tough decisions for women, because they don’t understand, and never will). Some girls can’t deal with the social pressure put on them. Having to deal with all the drama at school and all the rumors said about them. Drama is already the main source of bullying, and being pregnant just gives them another thing to talk about. As a teenager, you already have an overdose of constant hormones, plus the extra ones from the pregnancy, you are bound to go a little insane. And sadly, all this drama mixed in with the hormones can cause girls to become depressed, or even suicidal. There is also the fear that they may never get to go to college and pursue their careers, that they may never meet their soulmate and settle down, there are all these fears that poor teenage girls have to face at an incredibly young age. Teenage girls should not have to answer these life changing decisions until they are ready.
But this applies to all women. Whether you’re sixteen of thirty five, if you feel you are not ready to have a baby, that is your decision. It should not be up to the government to decide what you can and cannot do with your body. By outlawing abortion, there will be more coat hanger abortions. You cannot deny it. All the girls out there who are not ready to have kids, or feel that their lives are in jeopardy will attempt to perform these dangerous abortions. The only way to keep these life threatening abortions from happening is to keep abortion legal. By having abortions available, it provides a way out for women who have no choice. Establishments such as Planned Parenthood, are essential for any female to have as a resource. Planned Parenthood is not only for abortions, but is there to provide women with other health care services they need. It offers STD testing, birth control, cancer screenings, and a few other women’s health services. In fact, only about three percent of what goes on at Planned Parenthood are actually abortions. And not only that, but none of the federal funding that the organization receives is allowed to be put towards abortion procedures.
Basically, you can not support abortion by simply staying quiet. Because you are not forced to pay taxes that support an organization that goes against your beliefs, and you are not forced to use said organization if you find yourself in a predicament that could possibly benefit from this organization. You are free to believe that abortion is wrong, and you are free to never have an abortion. But you are in no position to tell someone else that they cannot have an abortion because it is “wrong”. That is your belief, and you should not force it onto other people. We have the separation of Church and State for a reason, maybe we should have a separation of Reproduction Rights and State.